By The Associated Press
Software engineer and entrepreneur Jeff Lyon stands for a photo in San Jose, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013. Lyon spent Labor Day weekend developing “Flagger,” a program that adds words like “blow up” and “pressure cooker” to web addresses that users visit. “The goal here is to get a critical mass of people flooding the Internet with noise and make a statement of civil disobedience,’ he said. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
A rising backlash to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance takes many forms:
— Encryption programs for email, Internet browsers, texting, instant messaging and other communications that encode messages so they appear garbled to eavesdroppers.
— Disruptive campaigns that insert words like “anthrax” or “Taliban” in various digital communications to degrade the effectiveness of surveillance programs that search for red-flag words.
— Cryptoparties are social gatherings where hosts teach attendees, who bring digital devices, how to use encryption programs.
— Petitions and rallies demanding Congress and the Obama administration to rein in government surveillance.
— Political reforms aimed to add privacy protections and boost oversight of government surveillance practices.
